Thursday, October 21, 2010

It was a stunning display of defiance right under the nose of the Government of India and under the protection of Delhi Police – defiance of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act which has been amended to bring under its purview not only those who indulge in secessionist and anti-national activities that amount to waging war on the state but also those who propagate secessionism and assist anti-national elements in waging war on the state. And this happened right under the nose of the Government of India, a short distance from North Block where the Ministry of Home Affairs is situated. The Indian state was pitilessly ridiculed and mocked at, those waging war on the state were openly asked to step up their campaign, and terrorism was glorified under the protection of Delhi Police.

On Thursday afternoon, a group of separatists, Maobadis and their sympathisers and publicists gathered at the Little Theatre Group auditorium on Copernicus Marg in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi, ostensibly for a convention whose theme was ‘Azadi – The Only Way’. It was organised by the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners, a front organisation of the Maobadis.

The ‘convention’ was moderated by SAR Geelani, a key accused in the Parliament House attack case who escaped the gallows due to poor prosecution, prompting the judge to comment that it’s a pity he did not pay for his crime although it’s clear he committed it. SAR Geelani, ironically, teaches at Zakir Hussein College in Delhi; he lives in comfort at the expense of taxpayers.

The only voices of protest against the undiluted abuse and scorn that was poured on India were those of Kashmiri Pandits who repeatedly raised pro-India slogans and waved the Tricolour. After a while, SAR Geelani ‘directed’ (I use the word after due deliberation) the policemen on duty to throw out the pro-India members of the audience. The police obliged, dragging the Pandits and pushing them out of the hall.

The following are excerpts from what was said by two key participants:

Arundhati Roy: “Kashmir should get azadi from bhookhey-nangey Hindustan… India needs azadi from Kashmir and Kashmir from India. It is a good debate that has started. We must deepen this conversation and I am happy that young people are getting involved for this cause which is their future. The Indian Government is a hollow superpower and I disassociate from it… Earlier we used to talk about holding our high and now we prostrate ourselves before the US… Kashmiris have to decide whether they want to be with or get separated from bhookhey-nangey Hindustan where more than 830 million people live on only Rs 20 per day… In the early-1990s India opened two gates – one for the Babri Masjid and the other for the economy… We ushered in two kinds of totalitarianism: Hindu totalitarianism and the other economic totalitarianism... I am also aware of the stories about Kashmiri Pandits. I must tell you that Panun Kashmir is a false group…”

Syed Ali Shah Geelani: I urge Kashmiris to boycott interlocutors and reject the eight-point agenda of India for defusing the crisis in the Valley. The people of Kashmir are not against dialogue, but the talks should be on the core issue of azadi and Pakistan should also be involved in the discussions… The dialogue should not be bilateral. India, Pakistan and representatives of people of Jammu & Kashmir should sit together… They must take into account sacrifices made by Kashmiris during the last 63 years. Indian Government has to accept our five-point agenda, only then will we initiate talks with interlocutors. Otherwise, I ask Kashmiris to boycott them… We demand Indian security forces should be withdrawn from Jammu & Kashmir under UN supervision; political prisoners should be released; cases should be registered against the killers of 111 innocent people killed during the last four months… We want the right to self-determination… Today it is said that interlocutors will come and meet a host of people in the State for one year to understand what people want. This is a fraud. It is an attempt to delay everything hoping that poeple will forget… Kashmir is not an internal dispute but an international issue…

SAR Geelani added a clarification: “Kashmir does not only mean the Kashmir Valley but the entire Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Muzzafarabad, Baltistan and Mirpur...”

It could be argued that the principle of free speech, which is one of the pillars of democracy, allows individuals to spew venom at the state. But when free speech transmogrifies into open call for secession, should the state remain an idle spectator?

A last point. If Chhatradhar Mahato of PCPA can be held under UAPA for providing assistance to Maobadis and propagating their cause, then why should the same law not be applicable when it comes to Arundhati Roy? Because she speaks and writes in English, is a Booker winner and is feted by foreign organisations?

30 comments:

Beautifully written article. Ms. Roy and her friends should be jailed for aiding anti-national activities. She has done nothing but to insult the nation and its people by humiliating us. India is a land where intellect and debate has always been welcome but our national integrity and security is above everything else. Even the judiciary says, "salus res publica est suprema lex (the safety of the nation is supreme law)".She champions the naxal cause more than the naxals ever did for themselves, same goes in the Kashmir issue and hence i have no qualms advocating detention for her.

Dada, so long as CON rules, the Arundathis, Geelanis, Sajjads etc. will spit and spat at India under their very nose and they will get delighted at it blissfully believing that letting such ranters spit at India would bring them those extra votes required to stay in power.

Arundathi Roy, let us say this female shame is just anal-retentive. Leave her at that.

As for Geelani, like the many other Kashmiri comrades of his, live a blissful life in India and spew venom on India. Of course, vote bank politics prevents our police or for that matter any other authority to take action on them.

Unless the general public hurl them out of this brimming confidence and bring them down to their knees, they will not recede from embarking more derogatory remarks against India.

Susanna Arundhati Roy is rationally challenged! We should ignore her but prevent anti-tolerance brigade from polluting naive minds. I do not understand why people take her or people like her, who are self promoting and lack ability to look at issues from more than one angle, seriously. To me, her lack of aptitude in almost everything including state craft, and unbelievable concoction of naivety and predictability makes her ignorable! I shake my head every time someone mentions her name!

Common man:"How did she get to be like this?"Wag: "It takes years of practice...."Write one fictional novel.Get a Booker prize for it( Like Arvind Adiga,another crypto-christian) .Accept it dressed in your mother's saree, claim your talent is homegrown.Meet Medha Patkar and jump into fringe politics.Get involved in Narmada issue. Spend one day in jail for contempt of court with massive vocal support from assorted global cuckoo birds. Begin writing for Frontline, and plunge deeper into fringe politics. Hours and hours of speeches on Gulf war, BJP, Hindutva, Pokhran II.She is now an emboldened "seceded" celebrity sans nationality and chosen voice of assorted loonies. Great pal of Swami Agnifake and Teesta Aatankvad. Has lied repeatedly, especially with regard to Godhra.You can be reason with reasonable people; with others .......

Sir, once again I would like to thank you for your fearless writing. Once again these brazen speeches of left-liberal and so called secular intellectuals were not given proper beating by media. We need to educate people about the reality of these traitors. Really shameful for us that Pandits are living like a refugee in their own motherland.

I don't think this govt cares at all about the unity and integrity of our beloved country. It is an escapist government that wants to duck each and every burning question before the nation, be it the Kashmir problem or the Naxalite problem.

Secondly, today in India civil society has inevitably come to mean those indivisuals and groups that challenge the idea of India and the state. This inevitably brings pressure on the government. Unless patriotic Indian organize themselves along acceptable and constitutional lines and articulate their views with force there is no hope.The space of civil society cannot be ceded completely to one kind of thinking.

Being a jihadi against India is a lucrative big business for the like of Geelanis. For matricidal persons like Arundhati Roy it is a plank for international fame! The spineless govrnment (?) in Delhi will do nothing to check these elements.

The CON of the CONgress party needs to be exposed.On the one hand CONgress left no stone unturned to harass, prosecute and jail the activist who was trying to expose the EVM loopholes citing the reason that the law of the land has to take its course and on the other hand here the CONgress reinforced the freedom of cession by providing security to them!!!!GRESS means no movement, forward or backward......and so the CON of the CONgress party remains where it has been for the last 60 years!!!

Silence is almost recognized as acceptance of guilt and crime so is in this case also be central home ministry or Delhi home ministry has accepted that that our countrymen are bukey-nangey by not taking any action against Arundathi Roy and Geelani. In spite of 24 hours been passed since this conclave concluded no one from home ministry spoke on this in favor or against it.

What is color of this kind of terrorism? Will Chidambaram tell to the Hindus of this nation? Modi was right in asking what is the color of terrorism in Kashmir but sad part of this man is that he fight lone battle with the congress system.

Has she ever spoken about the Islamic terrorism? Has she ever spoken a word about LeT and others during her trips to Pakistan? Has she ever spoken about the Burkha? I guess that wouldn't go down well with the "oppressed" people she's fighting for.

I used to be shocked by Arundhati Roy's views and Indian society's tolerance of her antics. I no longer am. Her diatribes have become very predictable have lost all shock value. Pretty soon, she will be another forgotten unhappy radical, just the way Gloria Steinem is in the US today.

The only thing that she can say in order to surprise or shock me is that she has decided to join the RSS.

Arundhathi's words are disturbing. It is certainly not because of her love or concern for the poor or for the Kashmiri separatists that she is talking so foul. She wants attention which she has become used to getting, after her winning the Booker prize! She should try and win another prize instead of becoming an agent of Pakistan or China!Why doesn't she leave this Hindu totalitarian Bhookhey Nangey Country and go to where ever her free speech would be welcome. She would be welcome in Pakistan along with the frustrated old Gilani who only recently got eggs on his face in his native land Kashmir! Our Govt has become weak due to corruption and therefore unable to deal with such disruptive elements. See what is happening to the looters of CWG?

It sounds like Arundhati Roy is not anti-India but is critical of the Indian government. Her words are saying that the Indian government needs to solve its own internal problems instead of focussing on territorial grab. Her stand is that Kashmir should stand up for itself, engage in talks with both sides and perhaps be its own unit. There is a certain independence in spirit and approach in Ms. Roy which gives hope for the future of India and Indians. And her agenda is clearly peace, grassroots empowerment and open communication, something governments around the world can learn from her.

Once the Kashmiri Pandits were ousted from the hall where this pathetic anti-India meeting took place by terrorists and terrorism-sympathizers, the Indian Govt should have bombed this building and not allowed a single one to get out free. Then conduct the same exercise in the Kashmir valley eradicating the homes and shops of all those who even utter the word 'azaadi'. Freedom for what? To implement shariah, ill treatment of non-Muslims (like Pakistan and Bangladesh as example), human rights abuse for all non-Muslims, terrorizing women and promoting inbreeding and terrorism? This what they want to achieve with Azaadi, something the Indian Govt must crush immediately. Alas the Kangressis pander to these same infectious forces for votes. We need a change of Govt at the center, and a party fuelled by the right-minded youth of the country's majority. That will being India's essence back. And please, enough Ms Nutcase Roy's chaterrings, somebody just get her over with already.

How critical the world is of the Chinese govt., the way they control the minds of the Chinese people, how people like Liu Xiaobo are portrayed as anti-Chinese because they are critical of the govt. Funny how most of us outside China don´t think he is anti-Chinese. Then why should Arundhati be considered anti-Indian? Is it so grave to point out the flaws of one´s own country? Criticizing your own govt. makes you anti-Indian? The Chinese mass´s blind nationalism and military hero-worship is understandable because of the way their minds are controlled, but we, feeling so proud of our free press, freedom of expression etc, should learn to think for ourselves. Remember, it is not wrong to question.

In some ways, what Arundhati says is true. India indeed has prostrated before the US. I cannot imagine an India in touch with its roots not rising up in indignation at this travesty that is being played out in the name of rights of the Kashmiris. As though the rights of the Kashmiri Pandits, Gujjars (from the valley proper), Ladakhis, people from Jammu, etc are not relevant, and somehow this troop of people bullying their way to the forefront is the voice of Kashmir. Panun Kashmir is fake? Okay. Kashmir wants independence? So where are the voices from Ladakh, Jammu, or indeed anyone who wasn't already a separatist? If everyone in Kashmir wanted freedom or to join Pakistan, how could troops prevent it? The sad part is that the Indian government is so concerned about the hook of recognition as the world's largest democracy dangled by the US, that it forgets that it is a nation to begin with - a nation with its own agendas that need not be approved by the US.

Ms. Arundhati Ray....getting a Booker prize with the help of American pulling doesn't allow one to become betrayer of Nation!!!! She and Mr. Geelani should be brought to the books immediately and theirs citizenship shud be immediately cancelled.

Rightly asked by Swapan dasgupta on his blog if this splitist and media wants "freedom of expression and freedom of speech" then why same must not be given to Varun Gandhi?

It has been more than one and half year that Varun gave hate speech but so far nor state govt nor central govt dared to prosecute him under any law.

Similarly during BJP rule Jama Mazid Mullah gave a statement that he is ISI agent and if Advani has guts let him arrest me. But Vajpayeeji's soft stand on this issue Advaniji didn't took any action. Just after Pokran-2 Arundhati Roy was running from pillar to pillar declaring India as a mobile country which is in the hands of Hinduvawadi. Here also BJP went soft they should have taken tough stand against her this only allowed bad roots to grow as a tree today and spreading venom in the society.

Its high time that Sangh Parivar declare open war against this group so that they can apply a brake on their anti-national activities.

While people associated with arts and creative pursuits are known to be eccentric in varying proportions, the involvement of Ms. Arundhati Roy in such a matter is indeed intriguing. I would lilke to believe that she's a person gifted with exceptional writing skills, and has made her mark in literary circles. But, being a renowned writer she should use her public persona to further more deserving social causes (there's no dearth of them in India), instead of joining hands with anti-national elements like Geelani. It's a pity an intelligent and gifted writer like her chose the wrong cause to espouse, that too on such a sensitive issue as Kashmir. It would be wise for her to pen her thoughts & frustrations with the Indian government, in her articles & columns. After all, as they say, the pen is mightier than the sword !

Funny the same guy who accuses mainstream media of misquoting and giving incomplete information on Modi is doing the same thing. Please see the full speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jROtLcvh2qY

Those who will see the video will notice, she was quoting a protester she met in Kashmir who called India 'Bhuka-Nanga' and she CATEGORICALLY mentioned that despite her support for Kashmir's independence she vehemently opposes that man's jaundiced view.

We can chose to agree or disagree with her views on Kashmir. But what gross lies are being peddled here! Hiding the truth by the clever use of ellipses.

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